A new wave of mobile phones is about to launch and first out of the starting gate for Google is not Samsung or Motorola or Sony – it’s comparative minnow HTC.

The Taiwan-based company’s new ‘One’ series of phones, headed by the flagship ‘One X’, has generated more excitement among British networks than any device perhaps since Apple’s latest iPhone. That’s in part due to a huge marketing push led by the firm’s TV commercial featuring a photography student using the phone to take a picture while skydiving, but few mobile phone company’s fans have the ardour of HTC’s.